Discussion about problems related to the reproductive tract such as uterine infections, False Pregnancy, lack of milk, Infection of the mammary glands and trouble giving birth. But also fun stuff like new born care. Aso about undescended testicles.

Developing a safe and effective vaccine for this disease is a big deal. Chicken is the number one source of meat eaten by humans world wide and Newcastle disease is... or at least was before effective vaccines were available... the number one cause of weak, sick and dead chickens. (most avian species are affected to different degrees and there is also some risk to humans)

Newcastle disease can typically kill up to 80 percent of unprotected poultry in rural areas and is found throughout the developing world. Newcastle disease is one of the most infectious diseases of poultry in the world with extremely high morbidity and mortality rates, especially in chickens (100% and 90%, respectively)

The global economic impact of Newcastle disease is enormous.No other poultry virus comes close and it may represent a bigger drain on the world’s economy than any other animal virus. In developed countries outbreaks of Newcastle are extremely costly, and control measures, including vaccination, are a continuing loss to the industry. Countries free of Newcastle (the last major outbreak in the United States was 1974... thanks to vaccination programs, constant monitoring, strict husbandry management, and carefully enforced rules and government veterinary inspectors guarding our borders from letting parrots, other exotic birds, and live poultry enter from certain countries. Unfortunately, like flu, there are many different strains of the Newcastle virus so we must remain ever vigilant.

March 26 500th nuclear explosion announced by the U.S. since 1945 This amazes me. Am I wrong, but aren't the secondary effects of nuclear radiation devastating to the environment? How many explosions since 1970? As of 2013 apparently there have been over 2000 nuclear explosions with about half being done by the United States.

April 1 President Nixon signs bill limiting cigarette advertisements

April 9 Paul McCartney announces official split of Beatles

April 17 Apollo 13 returns back safely to Earth

April 24 China PR launches its 1st satellite transmitting song "East is Red"

September 15 PLO leader Arafat threatens to make a cemetery of Jordan ... This is the guy Sweden awarded with The Nobel Peace Prize

September 22 President Nixon requests 1,000 new FBI agents for college campuses

September 28 Anwar Sadat replaces Egyptian President Nassar

October 9 Khmer Republic (Cambodia) declares independence

October 10 Fiji gains independence from Britain (National Day)

November 7 Race riots in Daytona Beach Florida

November 12 Scientists perform 1st artificial synthesis of a live cell

November 13 Cyclone kills estimated 300,000 in Chittagong Bangladesh

November 13 Flooding ravages Ganges delta, 200,000-1 million killed

November 20 U.N. General Assembly accepts membership of China PR

November 27 Pope Paul VI wounded in chest during a visit to Philippines by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest

December 15 Soviet Venera 7 is 1st spacecraft to land on another planet (Venus)

December 17 Gdansk, Poland ship workers strike

December 23 NY World Trade Center reaches highest point (411 m)

1971

Marek's disease vaccine developed.

Marek's disease is a highly contagious viral neoplastic disease in chickens. It is named after József Marek, a Hungarian veterinarian. This is another big deal.

Humans raise, slaughter, and eat billions of chickens each year. Most of these chickens are raised in confined conditions. However you feel about this, it's a shame to lose a large percentage of these birds to Marek's disease, Avian Influenza, Newcastle disease and Salmonella.

First comprehensive study on the effects of feeding aflatoxin to livestock and poultry published.

Microcomputers invented. This, of course is a big deal too, but doesn't have anything to do veterinarians in particular.

January 1 Cigarette advertisements banned on TV

January 25 Military coup in Uganda under Gen Idi Amin Dada

February 4 National Guard mobilized to quell rioting in Wilmington NC

February 5 Apollo 14, 3rd U.S. manned Moon expedition, lands near Fra Mauro Alan Shepard and Edward Mitchell (Apollo 14) walk on Moon for 4 hrs (Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon a couple of years earlier (July 1969)

January 8 Secret peace talks between U.S. and North Vietnam resumed near Paris

January 15 President Nixon suspends all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam

January 22 US, North and South Vietnam and North Vietnam sign boundary accord which everyone knew was a fraud... In a move nearly identical to France's withdrawal from Algeria... France, (in preparing to withdrawal from Algeria) and the United States (in preparing to withdrawal from Vietnam) pretended to withdraw with "honor" because they weren't abandoning their previous allies because there was a piece of paper saying the winning Algerian Nationalists in Algeria and the Viet Cong in North Vietnam would not massacre those left behind. In reality, we expected mass murder, hundreds of thousands of refuges, and confiscation of property. And that was the result the minute France gave up power in Algeria and when The United States left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The numbers killed and forced to flee AFTER we withdrew in Vietnam was much higher than the numbers killed in the years of bombings and battles in the actual war.

February 12 1st U.S. POWs in North Vietnam released; 116 of 456 flown to Philippines

February 22 U.S. and China agree to establish liaison offices in Beijing and Washington D.C. China is now our biggest trade partner.

February 27 American Indian Movement occupy Wounded Knee in South Dakota

March 2 "Black September" terrorists occupy Saudi Embassy in Khartoum

March 29 U.S. troops leave Vietnam, 9 years after Tonkin Resolution

April 10 Pakistan suspends constitution

May 14 Skylab launched, 1st Space Station

May 14 U.S. Supreme Court approves equal rights to females in military

June Future veterinarian Roger Ross (that's me) graduates from Cranbrook School and heads off to Cornell. (Although I ended up graduating from Michigan State after serving in the US Army.) Forgive my nostalgia, but I posted some pictures of Cranbrook's beautiful campus where I lived as a boarding student for the last 3 forms. "Aim High". The pictures are below on your left. (Famous Cranbrook alumni, includes designer Florence Knoll, former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson, Heisman Trophy winner Pete Dawkins, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann Romney (née Davies), columnist Michael Kinsley, Sun Microsystems founder Scott McNealy, former professional soccer player Alexi Lalas, and actress Selma Blair.)

July 10 Bahamas declares Independence from U.K. and adopts constitution

October 24 Yom Kippur War ends, Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 miles from Damascus

October 26 Israeli forces reach Suez, trapping Egyptian army

November 16 President Nixon authorizes construction of Alaskan pipeline. We take this for granted now. But this project of building a pipeline in arctic conditions was so expensive, so huge, and such an engineering challenge that it could be considered comparable to building the pyramids in Egypt.

November 25 3 Palestinians hijack KLM B747 above Iraq, to Dubai

December 17 Arabs terrorists shoot passengers on Boeing 737 to Kuwait

December 23 6 Persian Gulf nations double their oil prices.

Once again, huge Arab armies, bragging that they will "drive all the Jews into the sea" are so deceptive and conniving with each other and to their own countrymen, that after being defeated in days by tiny Israel .... have to blame someone... so in retaliation for The United States selling supplies to our Israeli allies OPEC drastically raised oil prices which was indeed a major hit to our economy. Some of the consequences included huge amounts of money flooding Arab nations (much of this money would be used to fund terrorism over the following decades), the new nationwide 55mph speed limit, and the huge change over from big gas guzzling cars in favor of small engine Japanese models. Also the political go ahead to approve The Alaskan Pipeline.

1974

United States ratified the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES).

First vaccine for chicken pox. (Human)

Giorgio Fischer a gynecologist invents liposuction

Raymond Damadian, American physician, is granted a patent on his invention of the magnetic resonance imaging device (MRI).

January 12 Libya and Tunisia announces they are merging as "Islamic Arab Republic"

September 16 President Ford announces conditional amnesty for U.S., Vietnam War deserters

Playing Pong

The Picture on your left is a beautiful Tennesee Walking Horse competing in a show. Tennesse Walkers are famous for their smooth ride AND and dramatically showy gait ... and having a Tennesee Walking Horse would be comparable to having a flashy luxury car today.

The heavy shoes on the front feet make him raise his hooves even higher than would be natural which might help him win the show. This is allowed as it is non painful.

Thanks to the Horse Protection Act of 1970, what's not allowed is purposely putting painful ointments on the lower front legs to achieve this affect. Hopefully as we evolve as humans, we will also ban many other historical practices that were and are pretty cruel... often for no other reason than showing off.

Horse Protection Act passed.

Basically this Protection Act, among other things considered cruel, made it a crime to practice soring.

Tennessee Walking Horses pick up their feet naturally in a showy high step but some people wanted to make this action more dramatic so would apply irritants or "blistering agents" to the front feet or forelegs of a horse in a practice... now illegal. called soring.

A Little About Women Veterinarians:

Before 1972, there were fewer than 500 female veterinarians in the United States. Around that time, Congress passed several landmark education acts forbidding colleges from denying qualified women a place in their classrooms. Almost immediately, the number of women enrolled in vet schools shot up.

"It used to be that high school guidance counselors told women, 'Well, you can't be a veterinarian,' so they wouldn't even think about it," said Dr. Bonnie Beaver, president-elect of the American Veterinary Medical Association and a professor at Texas A&M's vet school. Today, young women see just as many female vets as they do male, she said.

Veterinary medicine has also changed dramatically in recent decades. Forty years ago, cows, horses and other livestock were the primary patients. Being a vet was regarded as a rough, dirty and sometimes dangerous job - or, in the language of the day, "a man's work."

Today, care of large or farm animals is still a sizable industry. But the majority of vets nationwide work on the family pet, not the family farm. Modern medicine and sedatives also allow male and female veterinarians of any size to safely work on even the largest livestock

The neutron bomb, which destroys living beings but leaves buildings intact, was developed.

In medicine, ultrasound diagnostic techniques were developed. The sites of DNA production on genes were discovered, and the fledging research in genetic engineering was halted pending development of safer techniques.

The first test tube baby, Louise Brown, was born, developed from an artificially inseminated egg implanted in the mother's womb.

The 1970's introduced:

eMail

Barcodes

Laser Printers

The first space lab

Pong

1975

Avermectins discovered. The "wonder drug" that few lay people know about. This discovery is a really, really, big deal positively affecting BILLIONS of human and animal lives.

The ivermectins are derived and a natural organism found in the soil that has a wide range of safety and have proven very effective against most major internal and external parasites affecting all types of animals, humans, and I'm pretty sure in agricultural and ornamental plants and crops.

Originating from a single Japanese soil sample, apparently taken from a golf course, ivermectin, the safest and most widely used derivative of avermectin, was initially available as a commercial product for animals in 1981... just 6 years from discovery to market. It turned out to be effective against so many parasites that greatly affected animal health and economics; gastrointestinal roundworms, lungworms, other nematodes, heartworms, ear mites, mange, other mites, lice, hornflies, fish lice, and ticks, including the ixodid tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, one of the most important cattle parasites in the tropics and subtropics, which causes enormous economic damage. Ivermectin is being used to treat billions of horses, farm animals and pets around the world.

In 1988, Ivermectin proved to be even more of a ‘Wonder drug’ in human health, improving the nutrition & general health of billions of people worldwide when it was found to treat or cure Onchocerciasis, Strongyloidiasis, Ascariasis, cutaneous larva migrans, filariases, Gnathostomiasis and Trichuriasis, as well as external parasites that plague people in the tropics and poorer nations like lice and scabies.

Ivermectin is the essential mainstay of two global disease elimination campaigns that should soon rid the world of two of its most disfiguring and devastating diseases, Onchocerciasis(also known as river blindness and Robles disease, it is caused a parasitic worm spread by the bite of a black fly. Symptoms include severe itching, bumps under the skin, and blindness. It is the second most common cause of blindness due to infection, after trachoma.)and Lymphatic filariasis, which blight the lives of billions of the poor and disadvantaged throughout the tropics.

The discovery story is interesting.

Researchers at Tokyo’s Kitasato Institute were well known for searching for and finding organisms from soil samples that showed some form of bio activity that might be useful. The head researcher of the Antibiotics Research Group (Satoshi Õmura) left the institute in Japan for a research sebatical abroad ... at Wesleyan University, Connecticut to work with Max Tischler* who had an amazing career with the giant drug company Merck, Sharp, and Dohme.

Because of this serendipitous working relationship between Doctors Omura and Tishler, a collaboration with the US-based Merck, Sharp and Dohme (MSD) pharmaceutical company and Kitasato Institute was created... another first... an international partnership between a private research corporation and a public research institution in Japan.

The Kitasato Institute iin Tokyo isolated organisms from soil samples and carried out preliminary in vitro evaluation of their bioactivity. Promising bioactive samples were then sent to the Merck Sharp, and Dohme laboratories for further in vivo testing where a potent and promising novel bioactivity was found, subsequently identified as being caused by a new compound, which was named ‘avermectin'.

Further work indicated that derivatives from avermectin... especially ivermectin... were extremely effective ... and safe... against a wide range of parasites.

Very darn lucky, it turns out, because despite decades of searching around the world since then, the Japanese microorganism remains the only source of avermectin ever found. And maybe because Dr. Omura was a lousy golfer who hit his ball off the fairway and decided to collect some soil.

Monoclonal antibodies invented.

Demonstrated that a fraction of the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease is not infectious, but produces immunity in livestock.

1975 Vietnam falls to the communists leading to mass murder and millions of refuges fleeing for their lives

The situation is even worse in Cambodia

1976

Beef Research and Information Act passed.

Federal Land Policy and Management Act repealed Homestead Act and many other land laws.

Propagated bovine leukemia virus in cell culture.

1977

Discovered direct relationship between Neotyphodium coenophialum fungus in fescue and disease in cattle.

First vaccine for pneumonia (Human)

Jimmy Carter is inaugurated as the 39th president President Carter signs treaty agreeing to turn control of Panama Canal over to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999.

Iranian students storm U.S. embassy in Teheran and hold 66 people hostage

USSR invades Afghanistan

I was going to place a picture here with one of the gross parasites that ivermectin treats but elected to put this nice picture of Wesleyan University here instead.

* Max Tishler PhD (Harvard) (October 30, 1906 – March 18, 1989) was president of Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories where he led the research teams that synthesized ascorbic acid, riboflavin, cortisone, miamin, pyridoxine, pantothenic acid, nicotinamide, methionine, threonine, and tryptophan. He also developed the fermentation processes for actinomycin, vitamin B12, streptomycin, and penicillin. Tishler invented sulfaquinoxaline for the treatment for coccidiosis.